


Honeycomb

by bluehasnoclues



Category: Naruto
Genre: A Signed Contract With A Village Doesn't Count, BAMF Haruno Sakura, BAMF Women, BAMF Yamanaka Ino, Communication, Dubious Consent, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Honeypot Missions, It's Not Consent If It's Under Duress, Marked As Non-Con Because Tiny Genin Can't Consent, Missions Don't Count, Multi, Negative Self-Images, Non-Explicit Sexual Content, Strong Female Characters, Strong female friendship, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND SUPPORT BETWEEN KUNOICHI
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21643066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehasnoclues/pseuds/bluehasnoclues
Summary: It all falls together in a way that’s too smooth to be coincidence.(Shinobi are taught to fight. Kunoichi are taught to smile.— sometimes, they wish that it could be enough, to be a shinobi.)
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura/Sai
Comments: 14
Kudos: 132





	1. I - This Was Never The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [odds and ends](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20927243) by [Dovey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dovey/pseuds/Dovey). 



> inspired by one of Dovey's prompt/idea/tidbit/things. I took it and ran, because while I can never aspire to reach their level, Dovey's Sakuras are some of the best Sakuras, and this one is mine now. :)

It all falls together in a way that’s too smooth to be coincidence. 

Sakura wakes up and doesn’t eat breakfast _(pretty girls are thin and no one wants a girl who isn’t pretty);_ in the shower she carefully washes and conditions her hair, then exfoliates and moisturizes and shaves every bit of anything potentially undesirable from her legs _(pretty girls are all so soft and clean, and no one wants a girl who isn’t pretty);_ she carefully covers the blemishes on her skin and lines her eyes, tints her lips pink, and teases out her hair until it is perfect. _(You have to be perfect to be pretty; they only want you if you’re perfect.)_

She wants Sasuke to notice her because he is handsome, and he is strong, and if he looks at her and smiles it will mean that she is different, that she has done well. _(That she’s pretty enough, good enough.)_

But he doesn’t look at her except to scowl, and even then, he’s not really seeing _her,_ so she skips breakfast the next day too. 

And then she’s put on his team. Team Seven. And their sensei, someone important, dismisses her as _not_ important. And Naruto is the only one who looks at her like she’s something good enough. But that can’t count, not really, because he’s Naruto: hated by the village and hated by his peers. Sakura’s not dumb enough to believe he actually likes her for who she is. 

(But he still smiles like she’s pretty, even after she hits him. She hates him a bit more for that. She knows she isn’t pretty and she doesn’t want a lie.)

And then, _and then,_ after Wave, after Zabuza, after she has proven herself — _useless,_ because that’s all that she is, that is all that she has grown to be — the pieces begin to fall. 

(They had been hanging from the edge of her first skipped meal, but that was a bitter thought, and bitter thoughts cause early wrinkles. 

All the more reason to focus on the present.)

**...**

“C-Rank infiltration mission,” Kakashi says in lieu of a greeting. “Right outside the border!” He smiles at them, and Sakura can’t help but think that it’s more fake than his usual. “We leave at eight tonight.”

Naruto cheers, and even Sasuke looks relieved to get away from painting fences and picking fruit.

“Can we have any more details, Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura asks, because she would like to think that she’d learned something after Wave, at least. Kakashi dismisses her with a lazy gesture. 

“I'll tell you after we leave,” their sensei says breezily. 

Night falls both too slow and too fast. Her parents kiss her goodbye (they still don’t know what happened, in Team Seven’s last C-Rank) and push protein bars and nutritional supplements into her hands. They hug her goodbye and Sakura allows herself this because there’s the chance that she might not come back this time. 

(Spoilers: she does. But she won’t hug them again.)

“In a bar?!” Naruto looks entirely too uncomfortable, because Sakura _knows_ where he lives and this can’t be a surprise. 

“We’re watching a civilian, but Naruto-chan,” Kakashi chides, “you still have to be subtle.”

Naruto flails, albeit quietly, at the diminutive. 

“So,” Kakashi claps his hands together. “What’s your plan?” And Sakura, for once in her genin career, has an idea. Sakura, for once in her genin career, might not be useless. Sakura, for once in her wasted, dependent, pathetic genin career, might even be able to help. 

Because she can almost hear the strained smiles, the swishing skirts, the _practice makes perfect, Sakura, stand a little straighter,_ and she thinks: Maybe I did have training, after all. 

“I’ll listen in,” Sasuke says immediately. “Get the intel. Mission over.” _(He is slouching,_ she sees, _he is slouching and he would not be considered pretty. Handsome, sure.)_

“But the files!” whisper-cries Naruto. He’s grinning, eyes bright and wide, like this mission is a game. “You distract him, I’ll sneak past and —” 

_(Naruto’s lips are thin and pale, and his hair is haphazardly cut, and his teeth are slightly crooked, and he would not be considered pretty. Handsome, sure.)_

“Maa,” Kakashi interrupts, “what is our little Sakura-chan doing?”

Her hands shake as she digs through her bag, takes out her mirror, and begins lining her eyes and biting her lips. She didn’t bring her tint, but she knows a few tricks. She ties up her shirt with a stray hairband and breathes. The night air tickles her stomach. 

_(She is standing straight. Her lips are red and plump, her hair is clean and tidy, her skin is pale and smooth and showing. She knows the elements, even if she would never dare to call herself pretty.)_

“Smart,” says Kakashi, watching her move. Sakura thinks that he sees her for maybe the first time ever. 

Naruto crosses his arms. Despite his ‘crush’, he is not paying attention; Sakura is not surprised, somehow. “What’s smart?” Naruto whines. 

Sakura flicks her cheeks and pushes the last strand of hair into place. 

_I have to be enough,_ she thinks, in a tone a bit too desperate, _and what’s the one thing I can almost do?_

Sakura smiles. “I can do this,” she says, and it comes easily, like she has complete confidence in her actions. Sakura is almost proud. She might actually be, if nausea hadn’t just taken up a roiling residence in her gut. 

Her hands are still shaking, because she doesn’t _actually_ know, because there is a good chance that she will fail at this like she has failed at everything else, but if she fails at this then she has nothing anyway. 

_(How long has she strived for perfection? How long has she been found wanting?)_

Sakura smiles at her team. The shinobi only watch her with amusement, like she is a little girl in her mother’s clothes. That’s her biggest fear: that they are right. 

Bitter thoughts, she thinks to herself. _Be in the present._

Any words that she could say would only be worth what she is worth, so Sakura turns and walks into the bar. 

The civilian, their target, isn’t hard to find. He is loud and full of gestures, and his belly almost knocks over three glasses. Sakura watches him with careful eyes, lidded, interested, with a hint of something that’s a bit like lust and a bit not. 

She can feel the moment he sees her. 

His gaze passes over her dismissively, at first, then slides back and stares. He’s focusing on her bare stomach, just a small slip of skin on a small slip of a girl, and then his eyes travel upwards to not-quite-her-face. 

She is underdeveloped but her shirt is held tightly to her body. Sakura walks slowly, meekly, with her head bowed but her eyes forward. She makes eye contact with the man, and she knows what he sees. 

Sakura has spent hours in the mirror practicing this look. She knows that her eyes are wide and her body is moving without her permission, that her hips are swaying just slightly; she knows her small waist and thin legs and emphasized bust are, objectively, somewhat attractive in this position. 

She moves towards the civilian like she is enraptured, curious, an innocent little girl just ready for the picking. 

One hour, seven minutes and twenty-three seconds later, she is back outside in the chilled night air. In her hands she holds two files, in her mind she holds six names, and on her skin she holds the memory of large, greedy hands. 

Naruto and Sasuke are congratulated for the successful completion of their second C-Rank mission. 

Kakashi-sensei smiles down at her through his mask and rests one of his gloved hands on her hair, just for a moment, before pulling away. Sakura smiles back and feels warm. 

She treasures that warmth in her chest as she greets her parents; she carries it as something precious as she skirts their open arms and laughs on her way to the shower; she lets it light her way as she steps underneath the shower’s spray and scrubs the hands from her skin. 

Sakura feels warm. 

The water is cold.

**...**

Sakura wakes with the sun. It streams through her open window, shining through her closed eyelids, and she only barely withholds a groan. Instead, she stumbles out of bed and takes another shower, a quick one this time. 

There is no breakfast set out for her and Sakura feels seen. 

She succeeded, last night. Sakura wasn’t useless. She still doesn’t know if she was use _ful_ — Kakashi definitely could have completed the mission without her. Sasuke… could have too, and even Naruto, just by going different ways —

No, Sakura thinks, and she forces herself to listen because it is the truth, she wasn’t useful. She wasn’t use _less,_ but she wasn’t use _ful._

Her stomach doesn’t protest as she steps out of her house, towards the busy street of the village. It agrees with her. 

Sakura isn’t enough. _Yet._

She will be. She will find a way to be. She can’t be dependent on her team forever. Right now, she’s their dead weight, their weak link, the sack of rotten fruit that they’ve been tasked to lug around. 

Sakura —

_wants._

But she can’t want until she’s enough. 

_(But how long has she thought that? How long will it be?)_

Sakura sees a flash of pale blonde in the crowd and cries out before she realises she’s speaking. “Ino!” 

_(Because Sakura is weak and she can’t help herself.)_

Her friend (because that is what she is and will always be, ribbon or no ribbon. Sakura was stupid once, and while she still may be, she refuses to let her friend go again) turns and smiles out of habit. Then Ino sees Sakura and her face falls. 

Sakura, all at once, is very, very tired. Her muscles are tense again and thick, ghostly hands grab at her skin. She has so many things to say and her mouth has stopped working. 

_(Sakura is weak. It will be so, so long until she is pretty, until she has learned, and here, now, her pride and effort are gone and that leaves only weakness. She knows this.)_

“I’m sorry,” she says. It’s all she can get out without her voice cracking. Then Ino’s eyebrows raise and Sakura decides _to hell with that, she’s seen me at my worst and she knows my weakness and this needs to be said because I will not lose my best friend, shan_ ** _naro_ ** _—_

“Sasuke’s an ass,” Sakura says, and it’s not at all what she expected to come out, but when she thinks about her slouching, rude teammate, she finds very little guilt in the statement. He’s handsome, sure, but Ino is Ino, and Sakura is weak. 

The words sit heavy in the fragile air between them. “Ah, um,” continues Sakura, sounding clunky and awkward and all-too-much like the crying girl that Ino had first met, “I shouldn’t have let you go to begin with. Regardless of his personality. Regardless of anything. Our friendship was worth more than a boy, and I’m sorry, Ino-chan.” 

Sakura bows low, steady and perfect, and watches as Ino’s manicured toes stand unmoving. 

Then something hits the back of her head and Sakura falls forward. She coughs, dust rolling, and pushes herself back up. “What the hell, In—”

“What do you mean, _let me go?!”_ the blonde shrieks. “You don’t _let_ me do anything. _I_ make my _own_ decisions—”

“—and shitty apologies,” Sakura interrupts, feeling the smile break out on her face. “Thanks, Ino-chan.” 

Ino huffs, crossing her arms. “Since you were the one to _throw your ribbon in my face,_ you can be the one to buy us lunch.” 

“Maa,” Sakura waves her hand dismissively, her grin rivalling Naruto’s, “if you insist.” 

Twenty minutes later, leaning over her rice, just rice, a thin stick of dango halfway to her mouth, Ino smiles back and says: “I’ve missed you. I’m sorry too, Sakura-chan.” 

“Spa day tomorrow?” Sakura asks, and as Ino agrees emphatically with a pointed look at Sakura’s hair, her heart feels only lightness, because she refuses to acknowledge her bitter thoughts. 

She won’t forget what she said to Ino, and Ino won’t forget what she said in return, but Sakura — Sakura has a feeling that the future will hold enough love and laughter that there won’t be room for Sasuke. 

What an ass, anyway. 

_(In the back of her mind, there is a tiny voice that sounds like her mother._

_It scoffs._

_I don’t know what I expected, it echoes, and it is not the burning fire-tone of Inner, but the quiet, steady, disappointed look of someone pretty.)_

Sakura sets aside her chopsticks and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> broskis, I will tell you now that updates on this fic are gonna be hella slow, because this premise is Weirdly Cathartic but Not Normally Okay Mental Health Wise. stay safe and healthy and drink lotsa water!! <3


	2. II - [De/A]scent

This time, the man is handsome. He is older, and is beginning to sprout grey hairs, but his eyes are bright, his frame is solid, and his clothes fit nicely. Sakura wonders if this should make it easier or harder. 

Not that it would be hard, of course, because this is something she can do, this is a way that she can help. How can she find that difficult? Sasuke and Naruto get excited about fights, because that’s their role in the team. 

Sakura tugs her shirt down, making the v-neck just a little bit more obvious, and tries to convince herself that she’s excited about hers. They don’t find their role difficult, so why would she? It’s so much less work than theirs, after all. 

“Tch,” says Sasuke, before turning to glare at the trees instead. Sakura breathes out, breathes in, and decides that she might as well answer her question now. 

Forty-five minutes and twelve seconds later, she knows:

No, it does not make it easier. 

**...**

“Ah, Ino-chan, how are missions going?” Sakura asks. 

“Eh,” Ino shrugs. “Shikamaru is too lazy to do any work and Choji just eats food. Asuma hasn’t trained us much, besides a couple jutsus. What about you, Forehead?” 

Sakura mimics her tone. “Kind of boring. Kakashi’s stuck us with D-Ranks, you know, because he doesn’t really trust us with anything else.” 

“Wait, hold up,” says Ino, throwing up a hand, “so is that whole ‘missing-nin C-Rank-turned-A’ thing in Wave a real rumor? Your first C?” Sakura laughs, and it doesn’t sound forced because she’s been atoning for her (in)actions. She’s been actively ensuring that it never happens again. 

“Yeah, it happened,” Sakura says, “We should trade: You tell me the rumors, I’ll tell you the story. Deal?” 

Ino nods. “So, the very first one I heard was that you were ambushed by robbers right outside the gates, they took your client hostage and Kakashi couldn’t keep it from happening because, well, genin.” 

Sakura hides the memory, the hurt, that tells her that Ino’s not wrong; Kakashi _could_ have done better without genin _(her)_ to look after. 

“And then you went to Wave, blah blah blah,” Ino is continuing, “and some missing-nin shows up, from Ame, that’s what they said. The missing-nin wanted to kill your client, so they started duking it out with the robbers, which were still holding him hostage, and after this the story gets kind of fuzzy —”

Sakura giggles. She hears the sound leave her throat before she fully realises it’s gone, and she pauses abruptly, because she hasn’t done something so childish in what seems like forever. But Ino is giving her an odd look, so Sakura giggles again and tells the truth. 

“So, actually, it was the Demon Brothers, right out of the gate,” she says, and Ino’s eyes bulge before narrowing. “And Kakashi killed one and took the other hostage, basically, it was a mess. Naruto was poisoned, so he stabbed himself with a kunai and made, like, a blood oath to finish the mission—”

“You’re shitting me,” Ino interrupts. “Are you _serious?”_

“Dead,” says Sakura, still smiling. “So we decide to continue on, right, even though it’s already upped to B-Rank? And it’s actually pretty calm until we get to solid land in Wave. At this point, Naruto was pretty twitchy, he kept throwing his kunai into random bushes—”

_“Are you serious.”_

“Let me finish! So Naruto’s tossing kunai everywhere, and Kakashi’s suddenly shouting _‘duck’,_ so I grab the client and shove us both to the ground, because everyone else basically forgot about him—”

“But he’s the _client.”_

“Have you met my team?” 

Ino pauses. “Okay, point. But was there actually ever a missing-nin?”

“Yeah,” Sakura says, letting her voice drop into a sarcastic drawl, _“Demon of Kirigakure, Momochi Zabuza of the Kubikiribocho Sword.”_

Ino stares. Then blinks, then stares. “Are you sure?” 

Sakura nods, pretending like her heart doesn’t beat faster at the thought, like she can’t smell the sharp tang of blood and fog. “Yep. Started listing out our vital organs and everything.” 

_“How are you still here.”_

I don’t know, Sakura doesn’t say. 

Because I stood back and did nothing, Sakura doesn’t say. 

Because I am useless, Sakura doesn’t say, when I can not be pretty. 

“Kakashi’s kind of badass,” Sakura says, and grins, and pretends that her lungs aren’t stretched thin. “He was totally psyching out Zabuza, right, and copying everything with his Sharingan, but then he got trapped—”

Ino hums, her eyes distant for a moment. “Yeah, Dad told me about that. Do you know the story?” 

“No,” Sakura says honestly. “What, of how Kakashi got it? As a non-Uchiha?” 

“Yeah,” Ino says. “No one really does, but there are a few theories. Wanna hear them?” 

Sakura smiles and pretends that her muscles aren’t relaxing already, that her heart hasn’t grown thrice in size. 

Her lungs suddenly feel stretched thin for an entirely different reason, and Sakura leans into Ino, the tension slowly seeping out of her body, the ringing of blades slightly muffled in her ears. 

She lets Ino’s voice, comforting in its familiarity, drown out her thoughts. 

Ino has always known when to stop. Even when they got carried away, even when they could call themselves ‘children’, Ino has _always_ known when to stop. 

Sakura doesn’t know why she’s so surprised, but she’s incredibly grateful nonetheless. And all the more so when Ino doesn’t try to touch her, doesn’t try to pull her close, just lets her rest on her shoulder and relax and not think about death, for an evening. 

It’s a good feeling, and it’s one that Sakura will keep close. For a long time to come, she thinks, and it is a blessedly sweet thought. 

**...**

It’s easier when they’re ugly and mean, Sakura discovers. 

Handsome and nice blurs too many lines, handsome and mean makes her think (disturbingly) of Sasuke, ugly and nice makes her throat close and her body want to curl up in a ball and never come out again —

Ugly and mean is not easy, but it is easier, because she knows there is nothing keeping there besides her duty, and it’s a measure of control that she doesn’t deserve but she takes greedily anyway. 

**...**

“Ah, Ino-chan, how are missions going?” Sakura asks. 

“Ugh, I had to be in a closed room alone with Asuma-sensei,” Ino says, and she sounds disgusted. Her face is doing something complicated. 

“Did something happen?” Sakura asks carefully, because _god, she doesn’t know how to approach this, how is Ino even going to know what she’s trying to say without saying —_

“Yeah,” Ino says. “I can feel it, like, _clinging_ to me, it’s _gross,_ I _hate_ it, and it’s not like Dad can do anything about it, otherwise I’d probably go to him and complain —”

Sakura feels terrible. Sakura feels relieved. Sakura feels terrible _because_ she feels relieved, and she decides that she is going to make Inoichi listen, because if Ino also hates it then _Sakura is allowed to —_

“And I mean, it’s not like I’m not used to it by now, geez, you’d think enough exposure and everything, but when it’s _just you_ in the room it somehow feels more potent, you know?” 

“I know,” says Sakura, and her voice cracks. “I — yeah, I know.” 

Ino nods. “Eh, but I suppose it doesn’t bother me enough to throw a fit about it, even if the smoke sticks to my clothes through two washes, _two washes,_ Sakura. On second thought, maybe I should throw a fit, do you know how much soap that’s wasting? Too much, that’s how much soap.” 

Sakura feels terrible. Sakura feels terrible _because_ she feels terrible that she’s no longer relieved. Asuma smokes. She’s seen him smoking. He’s always smoking. 

She’s an idiot. 

But at least Ino is safe. 

At least Ino has smoke clinging to her, rather than hands. 

(Sakura doesn’t want to think about how much soap she’s used, how much she’s _wasted_ on herself and her _petty comfort.)_

Sakura does not think on those bitter thoughts for the rest of their conversation; but for a moment, she feels a fierce satisfaction at the idea of early wrinkles. 

_(The eternally-disappointed voice in the back of her mind, the one that sounds like her mother, tuts.)_

**...**

She does her best to hold Ino’s warmth in her mind. The night is cold and she is tired and she mostly wants to cry, but then her kohl will smear and it took _forever_ to get just right. 

This man is not handsome, and he has a very specific set of preferences. He’s another civilian, which is why Team Seven took the mission; Kakashi signed them up because now they had a _kunoichi_ on their team. Before, she might as well have been a civilian herself, and now, she is —

what she has been taught to be. 

So Kakashi huddled them around a small file and speaks of Yamade Kuniyoshi, a trader for a penchant for young girls and boys, low-risk, no violence, just a quick peek into his room in the inn, a bit of surveillance to see how many _other_ eyes were watching. 

_Low-risk,_ Sakura thinks dully. _This man… isn’t a risk._

_Because kunoichi aren’t important enough for their potential pain to be considered a “risk”?_

And Sakura feels something snap, deep inside, too deep for her to fully recognize, because she is indignant. 

She is _angry._

(She is terrified.) 

Because she is still not pretty enough, her actions are still not practiced enough, she is still _making mistakes_ and being told that _she is not enough._

(Because after her last mission, one of the ones where Kakashi had her go ahead of Naruto and Sasuke, had her distract adult civilians with her adolescent self, and she had pulled away too soon, when she had managed to jeopardize the mission because she flinched from meaty hands —

Kakashi had been disappointed. He had trusted her with a task, and she had not been enough.) 

So this time she looks up to the sky to save the kohl lining her eyes and breathes out and breathes in and steadies her hands and —

She walks with an innocent stride, hesitant this time, because he has a preference and she will fill it. He has a preference and she’s _not_ thinking bitter thoughts, she’s thinking about the _mission_ and _Konoha_ and her _sensei_ who _trusted her._

(Sometimes she wishes he expected less of them, she thinks absentmindedly, watching the man beckon her over with hunger in his eyes. Kakashi’s reality is skewed by his talent and the company he keeps; she is still _twelve.)_

 _Bitter thoughts do not a kunoichi make,_ Sakura laughs, and smiles demurely at the man, and doesn’t cry. The room is dark and —

“Sweet girl,” Yamade croons, “such a sweet, darling girl, won’t you be good for Kuniyoshi?” and —

“M-hm, that’s a good girl, perfect, precious child,” he says over and over and over and over and —

**...**

It is their fifth spa-day. Sakura has had a rare week of freedom, of picking fruit and sorting wood. 

_(She should not be grateful for freedom; she should be upset that she has no outlet to practice._

_Practice, Sakura, practice practice practice practice pra—)_

“Ah, Ino-chan, how are missions going?” Sakura asks. Ino is quiet, and Sakura moves closer, and she very purposely doesn’t let their shoulders brush. 

“I’m here,” Sakura says softly, “and I’ll listen if you need me.” 

Quietly, choking, Ino tells her a story of hands against her body. Sakura listens. 

“I hate it,” Ino says, her eyes glaring, furious through her sorrow. “I hate _this._ God, Sakura, I hope you never have to feel this way.” 

Sakura hates herself a little bit more when she only makes a small, agreeing sound, because her throat is too tight for her own confessions.


End file.
